And sweetly did the pages fill

With fond device and loving lore, And every leaf she turned was still

More bright than that she turned before!

Beneath the touch of Hope, how soft,
How light the magic pencil ran!
Till Fear would come, alas! as oft,
And trembling close what Hope began.

A tear or two had dropped from Grief,
And Jealousy would, now and then,
Ruffle in haste some snowy leaf,

Which Love had still to smooth again!

But oh! there was a blooming boy,
Who often turned the pages o'er,
And wrote therein such words of joy
As all who read still sighed for more!

And Pleasure was this spirit's name;
And though so soft his voice and look,
Yet Innocence, whene'er he came,

Would tremble for her spotless book!

For still she saw his playful fingers

Filled with sweets and wanton toys,
And well she knew the stain that lingers
After sweets from wanton boys!

And so it chanced, one luckless night
He let his honey goblet fall
O'er the dear book, so pure, so white,
And sullied lines and marge and all !

In vain he sought, with eager lip,

The honey from the leaf to drink,
For still the more the boy would sip,
The deeper still the blot would sink!

Oh! it would make you weep to see
The traces of this honey flood
Steal o'er a page where Modesty
Had freshly drawn a rose's bud!

And Fancy's emblems lost their glow,
And Hope's sweet lines were all defaced,
And Love himself could scarcely know
What Love himself had lately traced!

At length the urchin Pleasure fled,
(For how, alas! could Pleasure stay?)
And Love, while many a tear he shed,
In blushes flung the book away!

The index now alone remains,

Of all the pages spoiled by Pleasure,
And though it bears some honey stains,
Yet Memory counts the leaf a treasure!

And oft, they say, she scans it o'er,
And oft, by this memorial aided,
Brings back the pages now no more,
And thinks of lines that long are faded!

I know not if this tale be true,

But thus the simple facts are stated;
And I refer their truth to you,

Since Love and you are near related!

TO THOMAS HUME, ESQ., M.D.

From the city of Washington.

Διηγήσομαι διηγηματα ἴσως ἀπιστα, κοινωνα ὧν πεπονθα οὐκ ἔχων.
Xenophont. Ephes. Ephesiac. lib v.

'Tis evening now; the heats and cares of day
In twilight dews are calmly wept away.
The lover now, beneath the western star,
Sighs through the medium of his sweet cigar,
And fills the ears of some consenting she

With puffs and vows, with smoke and constancy!
The weary statesman for repose hath fled
From halls of council to his negro's shed,
Where blest he woos some black Aspasia's grace,
And dreams of freedom in his slave's embrace!

In fancy now, beneath the twilight gloom,
Come, let me lead thee o'er this modern Rome!
Where tribunes rule, where dusky Davi bow,
And what was Goose-Creek once is Tiber now!
This famed metropolis, where fancy sees
Squares in morasses, obelisks in trees;
Which travelling fools and gazetteers adorn
With shrines unbuilt and heroes yet unborn,
Though nought but wood and Jefferson they see
Where streets should run and sages ought to be!

And look, how soft in yonder radiant wave,
The dying sun prepares his golden grave!-
O great Potowmac! O you banks of shade!
You mighty scenes, in Nature's morning made,
While still, in rich magnificence of prime,
She poured her wonders, lavishly sublime,
Nor yet had learned to stoop, with humbler care,
From grand to soft, from wonderful to fair!
Say, where your towering hills, your boundless floods,
Your rich savannas and majestic woods,

Where bards should meditate and heroes rove,
And woman charm, and man deserve her love?
Oh! was a world so bright but born to grace
Its own half-organized, half-minded race
Of weak barbarians, swarming o'er its breast,
Like vermin, gendered on the lion's crest?
Were none but brutes to call that soil their home,
Where none but demi-gods should dare to roam?
Or worse, thou mighty world! oh! doubly worse,
Did Heaven design thy lordly land to nurse
The motley dregs of every distant clime,
Each blast of anarchy and taint of crime,
Which Europe shakes from her perturbed sphere,
In full malignity to rankle here?

But hush!-observe that little mount of pines,
Where the breeze murmurs and the fire-fly shines.
There let thy fancy raise, in bold relief,
The sculptured image of that veteran chief
Who lost the rebel's in the hero's name,
And stept o'er prostrate loyalty to fame;
Beneath whose sword Columbia's patriot train
Cast off their monarch, that their mob might reign!

How shall we rank thee upon glory's page?
Thou more than soldier and just less than sage!
Too formed for peace to act a conqueror's part,
Too trained in camps to learn a statesman's art,
Nature designed thee for a hero's mould,
But, ere she cast thee, let the stuff grow cold!

While warmer souls command, nay, make their fate, Thy fate made thee, and forced thee to be great.

Yet Fortune, who so oft, so blindly sheds
Her brightest halo round the weakest heads,
Found thee undazzled, tranquil as before,
Proud to be useful, scorning to be more;
Less prompt at glory's than at duty's claim,
Renown the meed, but self-applause the aim.
All thou hast been reflects less fame on thee,
Far less, than all thou hast forborne to be!

Now turn thine eye where faint the moonlight falls On yonder dome-and in those princely halls, If thou canst hate, as oh! that soul must hate Which loves the virtuous and reveres the great, If thou canst loathe and execrate with me That Gallic garbage of philosophy, That nauseous slaver of these frantic times, With which false liberty dilutes her crimes! If thou hast got, within thy free-born breast, One pulse that beats more proudly than the rest,

With honest scorn for that inglorious soul Which creeps and winds beneath a mob's control, Which courts the rabble's smile, the rabble's nod, And makes, like Egypt, every beast its god! There, in those walls-but, burning tongue, forbear! Rank must be reverenced, e'en the rank that's there : So here I pause-and now, my Hume! we part; But oh! full oft, in magic dreams of heart, Thus let us meet, and mingle converse dear By Thames at home, or by Potowmac here! O'er lake and marsh, through fevers and through fogs, Midst bears and yankees, democrats and frogs, Thy foot shall follow me, thy heart and eyes With me shall wonder, and with me despise! While I, as oft, in witching thought shall rove To thee, to friendship, and that land I love, Where, like the air that fans her fields of green Her freedom spreads, unfevered and serene ; Where sovereign man can condescend to see The throne and laws more sovereign still than he!

THE SNAKE.

1801.

My love and I, the other day,
Within a myrtle arbour lay,
When near us, from a rosy bed,
A little Snake put forth its head.

"See," said the maid, with laughing eyes→→

"Yonder the fatal emblem lies!

Who could expect such hidden harm
Beneath the rose's velvet charm?"

Never did moral thought occur
In more unlucky hour than this;
For oh! I just was leading her

To talk of love and think of bliss.

I rose to kill the snake, but she
In pity prayed it might not be.

"No," said the girl-and many a spark
Flashed from her eyelid as she said it-
"Under the rose, or in the dark,

One might, perhaps, have cause to dread it ; But when its wicked eyes appear,

And when we know for what they wink so,

One must be very simple, dear,

To let it sting one-don't you think so?"

LINES WRITTEN ON LEAVING PHILADELPHIA. τηνδε την πολιν φίλως

Είπων έπαξια γαρ.

Sophocl. Edip. Colon. v. 758.

ALONE by the Schuylkill a wanderer roved,
And bright were its flowery banks to his eye;
But far, very far were the friends that he loved,
And he gazed on its flowery banks with a sigh!

O Nature! though blessed and bright are thy rays,
O'er the brow of creation enchantingly thrown,
Yet faint are they all to the lustre that plays

In a smile from the heart that is dearly our own!

Nor long did the soul of the stranger remain

Unblest by the smile he had languished to meet ; Though scarce did he hope it would soothe him again, Till the threshold of home had been kissed by his feet!

But the lays of his boyhood had stolen to their ear,

And they loved what they knew of so humble a name,
And they told him, with flattery welcome and dear,

That they found in his heart something sweeter than fame!
Nor did woman-O woman! whose form and whose soul
Are the spell and the light of each path we pursue,
Whether sunned in the tropics, or chilled at the pole,
If woman be there, there is happiness too!—

Nor did she her enamouring magic deny,

That magic his heart had relinquished so long, Like eyes he had loved was her eloquent eye, Like them did it soften, and weep at his song!

Oh! blest be the tear, and in memory oft

May its sparkle be shed o'er his wandering dream!
Oh! blest be that eye, and may passion as soft,
As free from a pang, ever mellow its beam!

The stranger is gone-but he will not forget,

When at home he shall talk of the toil he has known,
To tell, with a sigh, what endearments he met,
As he strayed by the wave of the Schuylkill alone!

THE FALL OF HEBE.

A DITHYRAMBIC ODE.

'TWAS on a day

When the immortals at their banquet lay;

The bowl

Sparkled with starry dew,